


just like a ghost (i'm haunted)

by amosanguis



Series: crossovers and fusions ftw [62]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Crack Treated Seriously, Episode AU: s02e06, Episode Tag, Episode: s02e02, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Stuck In The Wrong Time, Time Travel, World War I, all tom hardy fandoms are now venom fandoms i'm sorry i don't make the rules, title from a song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 05:56:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16382669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amosanguis/pseuds/amosanguis
Summary: Starting a gang inLondonin19-whenever-the-fuckhad never been part of Eddie’s Plan.Alternatively: This isn't a story about how Eddie and Venom get to early 1900s London, it's a story about what happens when they get there. Spoiler alert: there's a war and then they start a gang.





	just like a ghost (i'm haunted)

**Author's Note:**

> \--Title from "No Problem" by Pusha T  
> \--I have no excuses.  
> 

Starting a gang had never been part of Eddie’s Plan.

Starting a gang in _London_ in _19-whenever-the-fuck_ had never been part of Eddie’s Plan.

And _fucking_ yet—

 

 

Venom roars and tears his way through the Italians and, because this is how things are done now, he leaves no survivors.

No one gets away.

No one talks.

No one sees.

 

 

Eddie changes his name and learns how to “bake” and how to speak like he’s been living here his whole life, adapting as quickly as he’s able. Venom helps with some of it, his own malleability enhancing Eddie’s.

It’s not long before Eddie finds that he can use “we” and “us” and mumble to himself (to Venom) and, yeah, people still look at him funny, but they don’t for too long for fear of his ire. Besides, looking around him, at the torn up and broken tin soldiers who clutch at their heads and scream in the streets – Eddie realizes he’s not the only crazy thing in this city.

 

 

And when a pretty, violent little thing from the Peaky Blinders shows up on his doorstep, eyes bright and filled with blood, Eddie and Venom _want_.

Little Tommy Shelby, who’s used to being the most dangerous one in the room, defers readily to Eddie – there’s a spark of something in his eyes, it’s not Knowing, but it is Suspicious, and it makes Venom chuckle and ripple himself over Eddie’s skin. Not enough to manifest, just enough to startle. But Tommy, because he’s a smart boy, doesn’t ask any questions – he just averts his eyes while making promises of delivering Eddie a hundred men.

 

 

Before the gang, before baking, before that pretty violent little thing danced into his office, there was a war.

 

 

Eddie has long since given up on returning to the 21st century.

There had once been plans to at least get back to San Francisco, but by the time Venom had eaten enough of the rich to get the money together for a ticket – the first boat he had come across was the _Titanic_ and Eddie had immediately turned on his heel and walked away, taking it all as a bad sign.

Venom had suggested then suggested they swim it – maybe eat a few sharks along the way – but Eddie had waved away the idea with a flick of his wrist and decided to simply stay put.

Two years later and he finds himself embroiled in a war he’s only ever heard of in the history books. He’d known it was coming, kept an eye on the dates, and, because he’s angry and homesick, he lets himself and Venom get swept up in it – let’s their anger carry them through.

Eddie’s no stranger to violence and blood – he’s seen it, caused it, filmed and written about it – but none of it compares.

Before, the fight would be brief – over in a night’s patrol, or just a few minutes.

In France, it doesn’t stop. For days and weeks and fucking _months_ – the fighting doesn’t stop. Venom feeds regularly on the Germans – slipping silently from English trenches and over to the Germans’, killing swiftly – just two or three, four if there were no flares lighting the sky – before returning to his side of the mud. It’s the same – night after night, until the rumors spread of the monster in the dark – before Eddie tells Venom they’ve got to slow down; Venom reluctantly agrees.

When they get back to London, Eddie falls in with the Jews and rises through their ranks. He and Venom revel in their violence and it’s like they’ve never left the war at all. The only difference between here and France was that there was less mud.

 

 

The next time he sees Tommy Shelby, Tommy’s on his knees beside a grave – looking up at three men with their guns drawn.

Venom reacts before Eddie does, swallows the men down whole as they try to scream.

And after, as Venom braces himself over Tommy, lying in the grave and shaking, saliva dripping down onto his face as Venom leans forward, taking deep breaths and taking in that violent little thing’s fear, sweeter than any civilian’s – Venom chuffs out a laugh, then recedes back underneath Eddie’s skin.

“You’re lucky he likes you,” Eddie says, not even bothering to hold out a hand for Tommy to take, just grabs Tommy by the lapel of his coat and hauls him up and out of the grave.

“Lucky,” Tommy repeats, still shaking and staggering as he searches for a way to get his feet stable underneath him.

Eddie straightens Tommy’s coat, brushes the dirt off. “Yeah,” he says, “ _lucky_.” Then he’s throwing his arm around Tommy and leading them to the car.

 

 

“We used to hear stories,” Tommy says when they’re back in Eddie’s bakery, safe in Venom’s territory, Tommy’s glass of whiskey trembling just the slightest in his hands, “from Germans who were captured. They’d said there was a monster who’d hunt in the trenches. Said it came in the night to steal soldiers and all that’d be found in the morning was blood.”

“What can I say?” Eddie shrugs a shoulder. “We’re not always careful.”

“Not always—” Tommy downs what’s left in his glass.

Eddie pours him another.

 

 

 _We like him_ , Venom purrs, his eyes running over Tommy slumped in sleep against a barrel.

“He’ll get himself killed,” Eddie mutters.

_Won’t we all one day?_

“One day.”

 

 

End.


End file.
